Why Now?

What would have been the ideal time then? Maybe the late 60s/early 70s?

The ideal time would've been when Kerouac wanted to do it with Brando as Dean in the late 50s. Or around the time of Easy Rider with a similar tone. Dennis Hopper as Dean?

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Coppola had been trying to make it since he bought the rights in 1978. But not a single American studio / producer ever wanted to put up the money. And none ever did.

It wasn't until Walter Salles met with some French independent producers in about2009 (regarding a different project at first) and that was the first time anyone ever wanted to fund it.

And as to it being made back in 1958 when Jack wanted Marlon to "put up his dukes" and play Neal ... Hollywood just DESTROYED his book The Subterraneans. And some b-movie sleezeball copyrighted "The Beat Generation" and made an exploitation film that was also god-awful. So ... there wasn't a good track record of Hollywood "getting" the Beats.

With everything that happened in the sixties, by the time Easy Rider came along, the Beats were seen as passe.

Coppola went thru a half a dozen different scripts, and had different directors lined up, and even did some casting at different times, but they could never get the money, the director and the script to ever line up. And to Coppola's credit, he never rushed into doing it just because he had some big names attached.